Task 2
Questions 13-18
Read the text below.
For questions 13-18, choose the correct answer (A, B, C or D).
Mark your answer on the answer sheet.
Farah Frill: a new obsession
She stands up when I enter, her pre-Raphaelite cascade of auburn hair shining in the sun, more concerned about my comfort than her own (“don’t sit there with the sun in your eyes ... try here”), her eye level well above mine. “I’m much shorter without them,” she apologises, pointing to her outsize heels, “but I need to get away from the sweet little teen image I have and start looking for a new one. Anyway, my shoe sponsors would kill me if I was pictured without them. Do I like them? What do you think?”
Farah Frill is no longer the teen pin-up but is fast becoming a serious actor sought after by major film companies. She plays the scary female lead in Ricky Shawn’s latest venture Obsession. It is not a part you’d expect her to get. “I’d like to think it’s because of the hard work I’d put in on Broadway. And I got good reviews for my role in Cold Sweat. You can put it down to coincidence, though. One day Ricky saw me quarrel in a bar and thought I’d be perfect as the “bitchy wife”. He contacted me to set up a meeting with my agent to work out the details. His mind was made up.
“The part is far from the brainless blonde teen of some years ago but close to my Broadway ventures, which people who haven’t followed my progress will see as a new me. Some of my fans, the ones who haven’t kept up with my development, will probably be shocked by the change I’ve made since before my training under the guidance of Giuseppe Guido. And the film does contain some shocking scenes, I must warn you. But it was fun to do and we had loads of laughs on set filming them.”
It’s a great pity that Obsession came out too late for the last Oscar season. Farah’s performance has Oscar written all over it. I think for sure she would have been holding the golden statuette if she had been nominated. This year, all the talk is of the major blockbusters, with their amazing special effects, which will probably push Farah’s sensitive performance into the sidelines. However, I think her performance stands above that of the other nominees, and I would be disappointed if she didn’t win the statuette.
To win an Oscar certainly means worldwide distribution and box office success. People who rarely go to the cinema queue up to see the Oscar winners. This is crucial for those grand epics that badly need a return on the massive investment that has gone into them. But the golden statuette has to be seen as a reward for artistic value, otherwise it has little meaning, even though some unkind gossip columnists insist that the glory goes to the old boy network who exchange favours amongst each other.
The only question hanging over Obsession is whether it is too fanciful. The main characters are clearly based on real characters that really did exist at a turning point in our nation’s history and had an important role in making the country what it is today.
The emphasis is on the supposed love relationship between Clarissa (Frill) and Jeremy (Kurt Hass). They are passionate, driven, and forever in conflict, a conflict that drives the action towards its inescapable conclusion. But from this conflict come performances of supreme artistry.
Farah is wearing high heels because
Farah thinks she got the film part
Farah's new role
The author thinks that Farah
The author thinks that the aim of the Oscars should be
The author says that Obsession is